Candidate for most distant object in the Universe yet observed

November 15, 2012

In this image, astronomers use the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and a cosmic zoom lens to uncover the farthest known galaxy in the universe. This image is a composite taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The observations were taken Oct. 5 and Nov. 29, 2011. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Postman and D. Coe (Space Telescope Science Institute), and the CLASH team

(Phys.org)—By combining the power of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and one of nature's zoom lenses, astronomers have found what is probably the most distant galaxy yet seen in the Universe. The object offers a peek back into a time when the Universe was only 3 percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years.

We see the newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, as it was 420 million years after the Big Bang. Its light has travelled for 13.3 billion years to reach Earth, which corresponds to a redshift of approximately 11.

This is the latest discovery from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), which uses massive galaxy clusters as cosmic telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them, an effect called gravitational lensing.

"While one occasionally expects to find an extremely distant galaxy using the tremendous power of gravitational lensing, this latest discovery has outstripped even my expectations of what would be possible with the CLASH program," said Rychard Bouwens (Leiden University, Netherlands), a co-author of the study. "The science output in this regard has been incredible."

Along the way, 8 billion years into its journey, the galaxy's light took a detour along multiple paths around the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0647.7+7015. Due to the gravitational lensing, the team observed three magnified images of MACS0647-JD with Hubble. The cluster's gravity boosted the light from the faraway galaxy, making the images appear far brighter than they otherwise would, although they still appear as tiny dots in Hubble's portrait.

The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way. The object is observed 420 million years after the big bang. Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

"This cluster does what no manmade telescope can do," said Marc Postman (Space Telescope Science Institute, USA), leader of the CLASH team. "Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy."

The object is so small it may be in the first stages of galaxy formation, with analysis showing the galaxy is less than 600 light-years across. For comparison the Milky Way is 150 000 light-years across. The estimated mass of this baby galaxy is roughly equal to 100 million or a billion suns, or 0.1 - 1 percent the mass of our Milky Way's stars.

"This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy," explained Dan Coe (Space Telescope Science Institute), lead author of the study. "Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments."

The team spent months systematically ruling out all other alternative explanations for the object's identity before concluding that it is the distance record holder. This was important, as nearby objects (such as red stars, brown dwarfs and old or dusty galaxies) can mimic the appearance of an extremely distant galaxy and must be carefully excluded.

The area around the galaxy was observed by Hubble through 17 filters—spanning near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths—with the galaxy appearing only in the two reddest filters. This was consistent with a highly redshifted galaxy, but did not fully exclude other possibilities. Images of the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths taken by Spitzer were more conclusive, however: if the object were intrinsically red, it would appear bright in these images. Instead, the galaxy was barely detected, if at all.

MACS0647-JD may be too far away for any current telescope to confirm the distance with spectroscopy. Nevertheless, all the evidence points towards the fledgling galaxy being the new distance record holder.

The galaxy will almost certainly be a prime target for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018, which will be able to conduct spectroscopy to make a definitive measurement of its distance and study its properties in more detail.

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35 comments

very interesting. i cant wait for jwst to launch to learn more about this and other early galaxies. *waits for tuxford and zephyry and cantdrive/hannes to pollute this thread with their nonsense, probably kevinrtrs too*

VendicarD

I for one lose sleep at times wishing for the Webb Telescope to get up there and running. If I am amazed at the work done with Hubble et al., (which I certainly am) I will probable be struck speechless when the Webb results start coming in. It's a wonderful era for astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

IMO this galaxy is actually a way larger, because more distant galaxies tend to appear larger in general (contrary to expanding Universe model). Interestingly enough, the Hubble snapped three images of this galaxy at the same moment (picture)

Isn't it telling how @Dark gets immediate 4 5-stars for spewing nonsense (just rubbish out of his talking brain), while others with some insightful contributions that at least challenge thoughtful consideration and the fantasy model get marked down immediately. Too bad there are no Republican voter suppression efforts on phys.org! Idiots abound.

The article states that this galaxy may be less than 600 light-years across. That means its volume is about one sixteen millionth of the Milky Way. And if you let its mass be on the low end at "0.1% of the Milky Way", that means that it is 16,000 times more massive than the Milky Way.

Isn't it telling how @Dark gets immediate 4 5-stars for spewing nonsense (just rubbish out of his talking brain), while others with some insightful contributions that at least challenge thoughtful consideration and the fantasy model get marked down immediately. Too bad there are no Republican voter suppression efforts on phys.org! Idiots abound.

"analysis showing the galaxy is less than 600 light-years across."

Huh???? Sounds like another convenient assumption. Defend the fantasy!

The object above is .6k x .6k x .6k ly (spherical). That's 216 million cubic ly. It's mass is about 100 million. That gives about .46 solar masses per cubic ly. That's about 10 times more dense than the milky way overall.

However, the central part of the milky way, and the spiral arms, are locally much more dense than the object above.

I am not a technical student, but if the light we see from this galaxy has been underway for approximately 13 billion lightyears would it's distance by now be not far more than 13 billion lightyears because of the ever expanding universe and stars drifting from each other. How many light years away would be the remains, if any from this galaxy

Couldn't edit my post but had an additional question.But since the observation is of something near the edge of the beginning, where are we situated ? In the middle, or are we out of the middle to the left and looking right or even to the left and looking left ? The last option would be invalid it seems to me ?Just some questions of an ignorant fool ;-)

But since the observation is of something near the edge of the beginning, where are we situated ? In the middle, or are we out of the middle to the left and looking right or even to the left and looking left ? The last option would be invalid it seems to me ? Just some questions of an ignorant fool ;-)

The fools are the ones who don't ask questions. As I understand it, there is no edge, no left, right, or center to the universe, as it is, so far as can be determined, homogenous and isotropic. Space and time are expanding along with the universe.

The light is red shifted, so that takes into consideration the expansion of the universe.

You have to wonder if there is an intelligent race in this discovered galaxy that is looking at our Milky Way through the same lensing effect, and seeing the state of our Galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago. It just amazes me that what we see is light/em radiation from the past, and that what is really there in the Present (if there is such a thing on a cosmic scale), is really a mystery to us. This new galaxy could no longer exist anymore, or could have drifted to a far off location, and all we see is some 13 billion yr old light waves.

I shouldn't even dignify this with a response. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. I disagreed with you ONCE and you started claiming I was following you around, wasting my time downvoting your posts. It's funny, considering that I'd completely forgot about you until today.

Since we see this object through the grav.lense, it means that the light we see travelled via different paths. Those paths may have different lengths and hence time to travel them (if the object isn't dead center behind the lense and other assumptions). So.... does it mean that we actually see a superposition of images belonging to some different eras in the life of that object? Given the distances and times involved, the difference could easily amount to tens of millions of years.

".... does it mean that we actually see a superposition of images belonging to some different eras in the life of that object?"

Typical delay times for gravitationally-lensed galaxies found near massive galaxy clusters are on the order of months (for individual lensing galaxies the typical delay time is days to weeks). Measured delay times in a few known systems are given here: http://ned.ipac.c...ek5.html

Scientist hope to measure delay times for gravitationally-lensed supernovae in systems to constrain the value of the Hubble constant and to probe dark energy and dark matter: http://www.lsst.o...rkby.pdf

would it's distance by now be not far more than 13 billion lightyears because of the ever expanding universe and stars drifting from each other. How many light years away would be the remains, if any from this galaxy

Most of the expansion happened prior to this time. The expansion since then has been relatively slow. We didn't even detect it until a few decades ago, when our equipment became good enough (Edwin Hubble and the mule keeper at the observatory are given credit for that discovery).

But since the observation is of something near the edge of the beginning, where are we situated ? In the middle, or are we out of the middle to the left and looking right or even to the left and looking left ?

Everywhere is the middle. It's all the same, no matter where you are. Someone standing in the galaxy above today, looking this way, would see the same thing we see looking that way.

So.... does it mean that we actually see a superposition of images belonging to some different eras in the life of that object? Given the distances and times involved, the difference could easily amount to tens of millions of years

Yes, different travel times, but it isn't that much. You can use pythagorean theorem to get the %. It's very small in this case. The light has been bent around a galaxy cluster which is only a couple million LY accross. The long leg of the triangle is 13 billion LY. A^2 B^2=C^2 then take C-B and that's the difference in years. I came up with about 154 years.

If we take the diameter of the lensing cluster up to 20 million LY, it becomes 15 thousand years time difference between the two images.

In celestial terms, that's nothing.

That's a neat thought though. If we had an event to see between the two, we could get the distance better than ever before.

If we had an event to see between the two, we could get the distance better than ever before. - GS7

This is the closest I can find to your 'event' idea. "If we assume that other methods will determine the distance factors more accurately and rapidly, then we can use the time delays to study the evolution of galaxy mass distributions with redshift."http://ned.ipac.c...ek8.html For both links,thks, yyz.